


Symmetry

by flibbertygigget



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Telegrams, Torture, jwp #10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 18:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4315206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MR HOLMES THE METROPOLITAN POLICE BELIEVE A BODY TO BE DR JOHN WATSON STOP WE REQUEST YOUR PRESENCE TO CONFIRM ID STOP</p><p>JWP #10: What’s All This Then? Use the POV of one or more of the police for today's entry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symmetry

Every copper dreads having to send that final telegram. I need not have sent it, strictly speaking, since I know the man on the other end well enough,  but I had not the courage to face Holmes when he received the news that his friend was dead.

MR HOLMES THE METROPOLITAN POLICE BELIEVE A  BODY TO BE DR JOHN WATSON STOP WE REQUEST YOUR PRESENCE TO CONFIRM ID

I crumpled up the paper and threw it in the bin. The message was too stiff and formal. Holmes deserved better than to be treated as another faceless moarner. 

HOLMES WE FOUND BODY STOP BELIEVED TO BE WATSON STOP MY CONDOLENCES

That message too I threw out. I may not be the smartest copper on the beat, but I had seen the way that Holmes had glared at our criminal after the Garrideb affair. If he was so vicious for a mere scratch, I could not imagine his reaction to the state in which we had found Watson.

I shudder just to think of it. The scene had been one of the goriest in my experiance. During the week he had been missing, Dr. Watson had been subjected to tortures that haunted my nightmares for months afterwards. He had been whipped, stabbed, burned, and beaten to the point where it was only through my association with him that I was able to find any identifying features at all. He had looked more like a slab of meat in a butcher's window than a man. The murderers' final deed had been to throw him off a bridge onto the rocky shore below. That was what was maddening. These madmen had only done it because they wanted Mr. Holmes to pay.

I closed my eyes and consciously steadied my breath. It made it far worse to know that the doctor was a good man. With strangers, perverse as it may seem, I distance myself by imagining the things they might have done to deserve what they got. But this...This was nothing but fearful symmetry produced by men who knew not the wrath they would soon face.

WATSONS BODY FOUND STOP AM BRINGING CASE FILES TO BAKER STREET STOP LESTRADE 


End file.
